News – “This 4-star chef is serving up fast food pasta in seconds”

nypost.com – The brand-new, long-awaited Pasta Flyer serves its noodles in a flash — even though they’re made to order. Choices such as fusilli, fettuccine or spaghetti are cooked in an amazing 15 seconds, thanks to what chef/co-owner Mark Ladner calls a “unique proprietary process” he developed. A whole meal, including sides like spicy broccoli rabe and beer, soda or wine, is ready in just five minutes.

And, yup — it’s worth the wait.

With pasta bowls priced from a mere $7-to-$8, Pasta Flyer (510 Sixth Ave., at 14th St.) is almost impossibly cheap compared with anything in the West Village or Flatiron — and even more so from a chef like Ladner, who ran the kitchen at Mario Batali’s great Del Posto from when it opened in 2005 until he left a year ago.

Unlike Sosta and other downtown spots that pride themselves on making their pasta in-house, Pasta Flyer imports its noodles from select Italian suppliers in far-north Trentino and outside of Naples. The product’s sent to a Midwest US processor where it’s flash-frozen by a technique called IQF, which Ladner says prevents it from going limp — the curse of most mushy, fast-serve pasta.

Pasta Flyer’s dishes emerge al dente from a 15-second boil and retains its toothsome quality even after saucing. Ladner says the swift boil only warms the pasta, which rises to the right temperature when the sauce is added.

My favorite was a rich meat ragu with whole-grain rigatoni, followed closely by spring-like basil pesto with organic fusilli and smooth marinara sauce with spaghetti, although the meatballs were strangely flavorless. Only the too-creamy fettuccine with Alfredo sauce left me cold.

Yes….YES….please make this a thing across America! Quick ass delicious pasta dinner?? Sign me up IMMEDIATELY.

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Lauren is a South Jersey native, a sports enthusiast, music lover and a professional foodie/beer critic in his own mind. He has been on a life long journey to discover the perfect cheeseburger and and won’t stop until he finds it.
You can follow him at @Biddle23